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Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

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Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#411

Post by ryathal »

gfxgirl wrote: post #210
zomgbbq wrote: post #25

Atari in 1983 went from the leader in video game production to completely imploding. In 1979, four of their best programmers left after demanding equity in the sales and were refused. Their CEO Ray Kassar famously said, "You’re no more important to those projects than the person on the assembly line who put them together. You’re a dime a dozen. You’re not unique. Anybody can do ­a ­cartridge.". They left and formed A…

I agree 100% with much of the sentiment here that creators deserve respect and a cut of the spoils At the same time, it really depends.... I'm pretty confident that there are very few engineers at FAANG that can't be replaced. I'd also expect there are very few engineers at Epic, Activision, Blizzard, Naughty Dog, Sony, Rockstar, Ubisoft, Valve, etc... that can't be replaced. Sure, if 30%-70% of the team left on any…

Blizzard lost their entire RTS staff to Frost Giant and will likely never release another RTS again. Sure they can probably survive on lootboxes for Hearthstone and Overwatch, but it's not the company it was. Even WoW is basically dead and is just rehashing with classic. Diablo got turned into mobile lootbox garbage as well, and it's too early to tell if Diablo 4 is going to follow the same path, but I wouldn't hold out hope on it being a critical success.

Large game companies have now essentially become casinos.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#412

Post by astrange »

Cyph0n wrote: post #105
astrange wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know one who got turned into a hawk and couldn’t turn back.

Animorphs huh. I read a few books a long time back, but then recently read about how the series became quite twisted towards the end. Younger me would probably have enjoyed it.

Yeah, the author killed off most of the characters at the end, which was surprisingly realistic. More than one of the heros (and one of the villains) was a programmer too.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#413

Post by yamtaddle »

ido wrote: post #408
yamtaddle wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intense levels of plausibly-deniable passive aggression, and absolutely god-awful intent being treated as something better to the detriment of discourse thanks to the "assume positive intent" rule, are what I consider some of the core defining features of the HN experience. I dunno if it does any good, but these days when I smell ill intent beneath the surface of a "just asking questions" post I just flag the bastard…

The problem is that your figurative sense of smell may not be correct. It really is quite easy to mistake an honest question or assertion as passive aggression or sarcasm in text form.

Maybe, but I can assure you from back when I tried to engage in good faith it's pretty damn accurate. It doesn't hurt that HN's a target-rich environment for such a detector, of course.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#414

Post by ethbr0 »

scarface74 wrote: post #396
ethbr0 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I've met people, there are three groups: - Those who believe that anyone who doesn't vaccinate "isn't intellectually capable of making good medical decisions" - Those who are opposed to vaccination because they believe in conspiracy theories - Those who are are either pro- or anti- vaccination, but realize it's a complicated issue, with evidence-supported pros and cons, that other humans of reasonable intel…

Either way, just like I wouldn’t want a religious zealot who has convictions about performing an abortion while my wife is laying their bleeding, I wouldn’t trust the judgement of an anti-vaxxer. One of my best friends who lived in Seattle whose wife did have complications during pregnancy. He told his doctor that in no uncertain terms if they had to make a choice between his wife and his unborn son, to save his wife…

As the product of a reproductive therapy that certain people at one time would have banned, I can sympathize.

To me the big difference is whether they're "I should not be vaccinated" or "Everyone should not be vaccinated." The former doesn't always mean belief in the latter.

So I look at someone being unvaccinated more like choosing to wear a spinning propeller hat to work every day... it's weird, and it makes me judge you, but it doesn't necessarily impact your work.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#415

Post by jeffwask »

hollywood_court wrote: post #305
robinsoh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's incredibly difficult to find skilled tradesman in the Caribbean that will show up sober each day and perform quality work. There's a lot to unpack in that sentence. Care to elaborate?

Many construction crews in the islands consist of a combination of European and US expats and Dominicans with a few Haitian laborers thrown in. On all the islands I worked on, it was rare to find people actually from that island who were capable of that kind of work. The Dominicans and the Haitians were fine, but the US and European guys mostly treated it as one big vacation. They would stay out all night partying an…

So they flew in labor and kept them in a pen without freedom or anyway to get home in order to ensure they did quality work. That sounds a lot like slavery with extra steps.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#416

Post by unethical_ban »

ikiris wrote: post #179

Ubiquity. They're just a software zombie shambling on at this point.

Do you mean Ubiquiti, the networking company?

Do you have any anecdote on human talent exodus causing a failure, or are you riffing on the company in general?

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#417

Post by hollywood_court »

jeffwask wrote: post #415
hollywood_court wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many construction crews in the islands consist of a combination of European and US expats and Dominicans with a few Haitian laborers thrown in. On all the islands I worked on, it was rare to find people actually from that island who were capable of that kind of work. The Dominicans and the Haitians were fine, but the US and European guys mostly treated it as one big vacation. They would stay out all night partying an…

So they flew in labor and kept them in a pen without freedom or anyway to get home in order to ensure they did quality work. That sounds a lot like slavery with extra steps.

It was a British project management firm and it was the first and only time I ever experienced anything like that. It wouldn't be the most ideal situation for me, but they seem eager and happy to be there.

I don't believe it should be compared to slavery since they chose to be there and they were paid well for their time. I don't imagine there was any other way to house that many individuals on Antigua. There certainly weren't enough hotel rooms or condos available during the tourist season.

They had quite a bit of authority as well. I was on site for less than 5 minutes when one of the safety guys made me leave because I did not have steel toed boots.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#418

Post by goodpoint »

ethbr0 wrote: post #87
mud_dauber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife (ER/ICU nursing) walked away from a 25 yr career. She ended up in the kitchen of an upscale grocery store - still working with her hands for 1/3 the salary. (Granted, we could withstand the financial hit.) She would still come home bone-tired after being on her feet for a shift - but much more interested in the work. Not having to deal with the public was another big benefit -the epidemic turned too many peop…

Interesting factoid: "computer programmer" + "nurse" are one of the most common spousal profession pairings. Per a recent HN link/study.

Not according to https://flowingdata.com/2021/05/26/jobs-that-marry-together/

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#419

Post by relbeek2 »

golergka wrote: post #397
joyfylbanana wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That studio owner literally made a billion dollar mistake by not simply being fair early on to the team. Never, ever, treat a team that has achieved rare success as replaceable cogs. If they've shipped, they can find more money people any time they want. That wisdom applies to that specific industry. In gaming, the people you hire are the asset. However the same doesn't apply to all industries. Sometimes people are…

If that's true (your statement, not mine), this just means that compensation fast fast-food employees get is completely fair.

Not at all. It just means that there is a larger pool of employees qualified to work in fast food.

Sometimes people are simply forced to take jobs that are not adequately compensated.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#420

Post by ManlyBread »

pjmlp wrote: post #180
n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Noncompetes are pretty toothless Not true. They’re illegal in California, but in other US states where they are legal they can be quite toothful. I have seen several ex-employees of my prior company get sued and lose. It became a silent doctrine to just leave a two year gap on your public LinkedIn after working there. If you put anything in that period (the length of the non-compete), you were at risk of the CTO sui…

They are also illegal in most European countries.

The one in Poland is fun. You can bar someone from working in the same field for quite some time but you must pay them 70-80% (I don't quite remember how much but something like that) of their annual salary during that time. Which means that most of the people proposing this kind of deal are clueless ans greedy businessmen who think they found a perfect leash for their employees but what's actually happening is that they find out far too late that it's binding them and not the employee.
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